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While effete European sensitivities recoil from capital punishment Iraqis, with their more direct and compelling stake in the case, have correctly carried out the death sentence on Saddam Hussein.

And, in fact, how many persons in living memory more rightly deserved death? A generation of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were ready to see their own relatives' deaths avenged upon this heartless agent of terror who, impelled solely by an outsized ego, filled long trenches with the manacled remains of his victims, fed opponents through industrial shredders, feet-first, and subjected female captives to rape and other humiliations to accomplish his own definition of tyranny.

Arguing that his execution might foment more domestic discord assumed that democracy's opponents aren't already doing their worst, and discounts the obvious benefits of removing the figurehead of a murderous insurgency and thereby finalizing Iraq's separation from the past.

Furthermore, whatever utility his execution may provide the political left and their undying enmity toward America and her allies, holding a tried and condemned Saddam Hussein to their breast in the name of humanity could never mask the insult to justice that act inflicts. Perhaps only the left is capable of parading as virtue such cynicism.

The surviving relatives of Saddam's victims were owed whatever closure his forfeited life has provided; more than even this, would-be despots everywhere were owed this fresh reminder of the punishment monstrous crimes still attract.